[3] Legal proceedings in the United States were not subject to petitions, rather, the site served as a public relations mechanism for the presidential administration to provide a venue for citizens to express themselves.

[5] The source code is available on GitHub, and lists both public domain status as a work of the United States federal government and licensing under the GPL v2.

[2] On December 19, 2017, the Trump administration announced its intention to temporarily shut down the website and replace it with a "new platform [that] would save taxpayers more than $1m a year", though ultimately it was retained in its initial form.

[6] On January 20, 2021, the day of the inauguration of Joe Biden, the website's address started redirecting to the main whitehouse.gov domain, marking the discontinuance of the feature by the incoming administration.

Under the Obama administration's rules, a petition had to reach 150 signatures (Dunbar's Number) within 30 days to be searchable on WhiteHouse.gov, according to Tom Cochran, former director of digital technology.

The official (tongue-in-cheek) response released in January 2013[17] noted that the cost of building a real Death Star has been estimated at $852 quadrillion and at current rates of steel production, would not be ready for more than 833,000 years.

[18] The response also noted that "the Administration does not support blowing up planets" and questions funding a weapon "with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship" as reasons for denying the petition.

[17][19][20] Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14, 2012, a petition for new gun control measures achieved 100,000 signatures within 24 hours.

[13] In February 2013, a petition started by OpenSignal co-founder and digital rights activist Sina Khanifar reached the 100,000-signature threshold required for a response from the White House.

A year later, Congress passed the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, the first piece of legislation driven by an online petition.

One petition, entitled "File charges against the 47 United States Senators in violation of the Logan Act in attempting to undermine a nuclear agreement", passed the 100,000-signature threshold within one day.

One, for the release of his taxes, "with all information needed to verify emoluments clause compliance" reached the 100,000 signature threshold within twenty-four hours.

[34] On August 13, 2013, the Washington Post website published an article about 30 petitions that had been left unanswered for an average of 240 days despite each having met the signature goals.